Introduction
Most organisations have a strong "Digital Presence". Meaning they proudly occupy their part of the internet and ensure all their resources are contained within. As an example The Charity Learning Consortium's website is charitylearning.org.
- Status Page - status.charitylearning.org (instead of pages.statuscake.com)
- Updates / Release Notes - updates.charitylearning.org (charitylearning.releasenotes.io)
- Uptime Monitor - uptime.charitylearning.org (instead of https://uptime.statuscake.com/?TestID=kwy9d8AuPb)
- Support platform: support.charitylearning.org (instead of clc.freshdesk.com)
- Demo platform: demo.charitylearning.org (instead of charitylearning.clcmoodle.org)
Administration Cost
Using a Vanity Domain incurs an annual administration cost which covers configuring the platform, obtaining an SSL, configuring a load balancer and assisting you with the migration from the old subdomain to your vanity domain.
How do branded addresses work?
Your platform exists on yourorganisation.clcmoodle.org, however your platform can be accessible from any subdomain your organisation wish to use such as learning.yourorganisation.org.
Your platform by default sends emails such as face to face bookings, password resets, new account creations and completion reminders from noreply@charitylearning.org, but your platform could use noreply@yourorganisation.org OR learning@yourorganisation.org.
How does this work?
Your IT team or Digital team manage your domain through something called Domain Name System (DNS), which is essentially a digital phonebook of the internet. DNS is the technical part you never see which means when you type "google.com" in the address bar it takes you to where Google is on the internet. A little like how when you dial a mobile number you are connected to a phone which is attached to that number. DNS is very quick to add (literally seconds) however it can take up to 24 hours to take effect, as computers cache this information at lots of stages.
There are three parts which are covered in a Branded Subdomain
Example: learning.yourorganisation.org
When you type in your search bar google.com in the background your computer looks up 'where' google.com should go which is (172.217.5.238).
Your computer then connects to the server at 172.217.5.238 and shows you Google's website.
We recommend linking your branded subdomain to your existing platform name. So learning.yourorganisation.org when looked up sends the computer to yourorganisation.clcmoodle.org which then sends you to the IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) where your platform is.
The reason for this is that your team will never need to do anything if anything changes on our side, as we are able to update where users are sent to without you having to change your settings.
The great thing is your users will never know any of this is happening and to them, they will go to learning.yourorganisaiton.org and your learning platform will be there.
The https:// and padlock in the browser
Using a branded domain or subdomain allows your users to feel more trusting or more familiar with a platform, but this immersion can be broken when they receive an email from somewhere they do not recognise.
As such when you setup your branded domain (or subdomain) you can authorise us to send emails on your behalf, so emails can come from your domain.
This has a few parts, the authorisation, the spam filtering and then 'deep branding' where the mail server is branded as yours which for the more tech savvy users will complete the look. We strongly recommend using noreply to send emails from to inform learners that they will not receive a reply if they respond, however you could use any address you send from, which could receive bounce backs, failed email notifications and many other automatic emails.
Example: noreply@yourorganisation.org or learning@yourorganisation.org
Using a branded domain or subdomain allows your users to feel more trusting or more familiar with a platform, but this immersion can be broken when they receive an email from somewhere they do not recognise.
As such when you setup your branded domain (or subdomain) you can authorise us to send emails on your behalf, so emails can come from your domain.
This has a few parts, the authorisation, the spam filtering and then 'deep branding' where the mail server is branded as yours which for the more tech savvy users will complete the look.
We strongly recommend using noreply to send emails from to inform learners that they will not receive a reply if they respond, however you could use any address you send from, which could receive bounce backs, failed email notifications and many other automatic emails.
Urgent Action will be required.
Once generated your team will have 72 hours to apply these DNS records before the verification process expires, this is controlled by AWS (the issuer) and not ourselves.
Example DNS
learning.yourorganisation.org CNAME yourorganisaiton.clcmoodle.org
(A CNAME is essentially a forwarder, forwarding the request to the other address).
Amazon require this before issuing an certificate
_d736jiJWd930b453b157Ade3db5aAfe6.learning.yourdomain.org. CNAME _19555jifsj4w9wkwe3f89c71cca7e5693bba0.duyqrilejt.acm-validations.aws.
Amazon require this for us to send emails on your behalf, such as automated password resets and system generated messages
_amazonses.yourorganisation.org TXT EzjhDzkdcokFPEKFo+QstAdfdaskf0krF4v91do19W0EFrj93X27td0=
Allows us to send labelled as the LMS system and not AWS' name
learning.yourorganisation.org MX 10 feedback-smtp.eu-west-1.amazonses.com
learning.yourorganisation.org TXT "v=spf1 include:amazonses.com ~all"
yourorganisation.org TXT "v=spf1 include:amazonses.com ~all"
This is important for several things including avoiding SPAM filters
qz5qzlwyz39iajfifjsfjqsfn3oafeqz7zr._domainkey.yourorganisation.org CNAME qz5qzlwyz39iajfifjsfjqsfn3oafeqz7zr.dkim.amazonses.com
akrkf30djaij40jdkc2oiwwoiofi03isofkokok._domainkey.yourorganisation.org CNAME akrkf30djaij40jdkc2oiwwoiofi03isofkokok.dkim.amazonses.com
ei0fiw40fiw40fik4fkwefkwfk4wkfwfkwFK._domainkey.yourorganisation.org CNAME ei0fiw40fiw40fik4fkwefkwfk4wkfwfkwFK.dkim.amazonses.com